Project Goal

"The idea is to enable Evenk children to stay with their parents, instead of wrenching them from their families at the age of six and sending them to boarding school."

In south-eastern Siberia, a nomadic people are trying to preserve their way of life against the march of modern society. The traditional culture of the Evenk, who excel at reindeer herding, hunting and fishing, has been eroded through contact with western civilisation. For eight years Alexandra Lavrillier, a brilliant French ethnologist, has been fighting alongside them to save their heritage, setting up a nomadic school that will give Evenk children the chance to receive a modern education without having to sacrifice their ancestral traditions.